Evidence for Believing

[Deesse23]

I think it was God, but I leave room for being wrong.  I don't analyze everything that happens to me.  I could waste my life away trying to analyze and prove everything that happens to me, but it's more enjoyable to put it in God's hands and let it flow. Living is not a method. I don't believe in God because of that one experience, but rather a daily reinforcement of my belief.

I think this is all we needed to know, and frankly, i dont know why this thread continues for 2 more pages (and more to come): Lek ist intellectually lazy. Lazy.as.fuck. He isnt interested in finding out if his beliefs are true or not. Its there. He has written it above.

He doesnt analzye everything that happens to him. Not even the most important topic there can be in his life "is there a god, and what does it want from me?". If he isnt interested in this, what are the chances he is nothered to find out if the next bus really is due in 5 mins? Its probably more enjoyable to put it in the bus drivers hands and let it flow.

He thinks he is gonna waste his time by trying to find out if his most fundamental beliefs are true, and thus is gonna waste his entire life then by believing BS. Him wasting his (life)time is only his matter, not ours. The sad part of such an existence, the part that affects others* is the amount of CO2 generated to further global warming. 

Case closed.

*next to him acting according to his false beliefs and discriminating against others, etc.

[Anomalocaris]

I think it was God, but I leave room for being wrong.  I don't analyze everything that happens to me.  I could waste my life away trying to analyze and prove everything that happens to me, but it's more enjoyable to put it in God's hands and let it flow. Living is not a method. I don't believe in God because of that one experience, but rather a daily reinforcement of my belief.

I think this is all we needed to know, and frankly, i dont know why this thread continues for 2 more ages (and more to come): Lek ist intellectually lazy. Lazy.as.fuck. He isnt interested in findng out if his beliefs ate true or not. Its there. He has written it above.

He doesnt analzye everything that happens to him. Not even the most important topic there can be in his life "is there a god, and what does it woant from me?". If he isnt interested in this, what are the chances he is nothered to find out if the next bus really  is due in 5 mins? Its probably more enjoyable to put it in the bus drivers hands and let it flow.

He thinks he is gonna waste his time by trying to find out if his beliefs atr true, and thus is gonna waste his entire life tem by believing BS. The saddest part of such an existence is the amount of CO2 genreated to further global warming. Himwastign his time is only his matter, not ours

Case closed.

That’s to put it charitably, condemning him for his lesser misdemeanor but declining to press charges for his felony.

He is intellectually lazy, yes, but at the same time morally vastly greedy for small and questionable perceived private gain with total disregard for possibly large consequences for others and for posterity.

[Deesse23]

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  

"If 10,000 people believe a stupid idea, it is still a stupid idea." (Bertrand Russell)

The issue is: His original claim is wong or dishonest. Over the past 2k yearsall chrstians were killing each other, en masse, over the issue who and what "god" is. Since we are talking about an abrahamic god at the core we would have to include Muslims and Jews as well. The muslim god is fundamentally different from any christian god as well as is the Jewish one.

Catholics beleive in a fundamental different god than protestants. All the evangelicals belive in a fundamental different god themselves. Westboro Baptists think god hates fags. Does Lek think god hates fags? I am not even talking about extinct denominations like Cathars or Arians.

They do no believe in the same god. They believe in fundamentally different ones. But again, Lek is too intellectually lazy. "Some others do the same shit i do" is absolutely sufficient for him, even if it actually isnt the same shit they do beleive in. He said, it, explicitly.

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I think this is all we needed to know, and frankly, i dont know why this thread continues for 2 more ages (and more to come): Lek ist intellectually lazy. Lazy.as.fuck. He isnt interested in findng out if his beliefs ate true or not. Its there. He has written it above.

He doesnt analzye everything that happens to him. Not even the most important topic there can be in his life "is there a god, and what does it woant from me?". If he isnt interested in this, what are the chances he is nothered to find out if the next bus really  is due in 5 mins? Its probably more enjoyable to put it in the bus drivers hands and let it flow.

He thinks he is gonna waste his time by trying to find out if his beliefs atr true, and thus is gonna waste his entire life tem by believing BS. The saddest part of such an existence is the amount of CO2 genreated to further global warming. Himwastign his time is only his matter, not ours

Case closed.

That’s to put it charitably, condemning him for his lesser misdemeanor but declining to press charges for his felony.

He is intellectually lazy, yes, but at the same time morally vastly greedy for small and questionable perceived private gain with total disregard for possibly large consequences for others and for posterity.

Well, i corrected my view as you were quoting me. 
My point was not so much the potential damage to others his false beliefs may cause, but how utterly irrelevant he is going to make his own existence. I was appealing to his ego (since the christian belief in its core is egoiitical and no altruistic, and Leks flavour is a classic stereotype). Not caring for your own (and only) existence, an existence you own to noone else but to yourself, makes your existence the possible biggest waste.

By believing hat he is so special to his imagined creator of everything he achieves exactly the opposite. His existence is going to be maximally irrelevant.....best case!

[LadyForCamus]

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.

Pay attention. I am not dismissing your conclusion (it was god) because of the fallacy you’re using. I am pointing out that you have reached your conclusion (it was god) using fallacious reasoning. That’s a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem. Whether or not your conclusion is actually true is irrelevant to the fact that you are not warranted in believing it is true, because you’ve used fallacies to get there. If you’re comfortable knowing that the reasoning you’ve used to reach a conclusion about the most important belief of your entire life is erroneous, then no one here is likely to change your mind. But, that’s something you have to live with, not us.

Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

And, hundreds of thousands of people right now think the earth is flat. Is their belief, alone, sufficient evidence that the earth is flat? Yes or no?  The number of people who believe some claim is true has zero rational bearing on whether or not it’s actually true. This is as objective as 2+2=4, whether you like it or not. If you believe that someone from the MeToo movement has been unfairly and unreasonably treated then start a thread about it, and we can discuss the evidence and reasoning surrounding that particular claim, and whether or not belief is warranted.

As I stated before,  people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange. Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

This is nothing more than an ad hoc rationalization for why so many people’s experiences of god are contradictory, and often times mutually exclusive (another fallacy), and is unrelated to the base fact that NONE of you have a way to distinguish between a revelation and your own mind. Therefore, your belief has not been rationally justified, and you can’t continue to whine about why folks here don’t believe in god. It’s because we, unlike you, can recognize that you have no good reason to believe your experience was caused by a god to begin with.

[Simon Moon]

Yet you and all those billions of people have “revelations” about gods that are entirely mutually exclusive. I just listened to a Christian describe a revelation by god who told him he was not omniscient, or omnipotent, so how do we figure out who’s right? Also, appealing to the number of people who believe something is a fallacy, which has been pointed out to you several times by several people.

You can't dismiss it as a fallacy.  Testimony of large numbers of people is evidence.  According to the Me Too movement, it's enough to destroy people's lives.

As I stated before,  people having different descriptions of an indescribable entity isn't strange.  Our various ideas and images of God are vehicles that help us go to him. And no, God doesn't have to give us all the same image of him, since any image we have could not describe him.

That sounds like a pretty weak ass god, then.

You're proposing a god, with supposedly immense power and knowledge, who can't even give a consistent image of his existence to his far less powerful creation?

Is he unable or unwilling to do this? If he is unable, then like I said, he's pretty weak. If he is unable, then he can't blame some of his creation for disbelieving he exists.

And the best you can come up with in defense of this, is 'god works in mysterious ways'.

Hopefully you are able to see why we are unimpressed with your 'evidence' and reasoning. Please, at least tell us you are able to see, we are being rational in our disbelief. This is a test of your intellectual honesty.

[Lek]

He thinks he is gonna waste his time by trying to find out if his most fundamental beliefs are true, and thus is gonna waste his entire life then by believing BS. Him wasting his (life)time is only his matter, not ours. The sad part of such an existence, the part that affects others* is the amount of CO2 generated to further global warming. 

*next to him acting according to his false beliefs and discriminating against others, etc.

You taught me some new things about myself. I discriminate against others and I cause global warming. I never knew that.

[EgoDeath]

@Lek

Consider a hypothetical car accident that was witnessed by 10 people. The facts in this hypothetical situation are as follows:

-The accident occurred on the corner of Nathaniel Rd. & Mandalay Ave.
-Two cars were involved, a blue car and a red car, no other cars contributed to the accident
-The blue car had three people inside, including the driver
-The red car had one
-The blue car rear-ended the red car, causing the driver of the red car to break an arm upon impact
-The driver of the blue car was thrown through her windshield, the two passengers were unscathed

We could go on and on about the details, but let's just take these details and move forward.

Assuming the ten people who witnessed the incident were interviewed exactly twenty minutes afterward, and could know all of these details, given they were close to the scene of the accident, how probable do you think it is that all ten people will get all of these details exactly right? I'd argue it's unlikely.

Two out of ten might claim they saw a blue car and a purple car, with the other eight having the colors of the cars correct.

Ten out of ten agree that the accident happened on the corner of Nathanial and Mandalay... but...

Three out of ten people might fault the red car, with the other seven saying it was definitely the blue car's fault.

Ten out of ten agree that no other cars contributed to the crash... but...

One person out of the ten might say the driver of the red car looked fine, while the other nine say it looked like he broke his arm.

So on and so forth.

The problem with personal evidence is that our brains, our memories, are not as reliable as we think. Our minds play tricks on us all the damn time. Have you ever heard of false memories? Sometimes, we can have a specific memory about an event or incident, but have details about the incident completely wrong. Or, our brains could just be making up the whole memory to fill in the space of some narrative our minds our trying to create without our knowledge.

I think you're overestimating the power of personal testimony as evidence. Eye-witness evidence is often considered the most unreliable type of evidence in a court of law. Granted, a jury could be swayed a personal account of someone witnessing a crime. Still, it's much better to have prints on the gun, and gun powder residue on the guy's jacket, and a receipt for that jacket in the suspect's name, than to just have someone saying, "I saw person A shoot person B."

Do you at least understand where we're coming from?

[Lek]

That sounds like a pretty weak ass god, then.

You're proposing a god, with supposedly immense power and knowledge, who can't even give a consistent image of his existence to his far less powerful creation?

Is he unable or unwilling to do this? If he is unable, then like I said, he's pretty weak. If he is unable, then he can't blame some of his creation for disbelieving he exists.

And the best you can come up with in defense of this, is 'god works in mysterious ways'.

Hopefully you are able to see why we are unimpressed with your 'evidence' and reasoning. Please, at least tell us you are able to see, we are being rational in our disbelief. This is a test of your intellectual honesty.

In your little world, you seem very rational. To those who know God, you're not. Instead of looking for evidence God wants to give you, you're demanding he give you evidence that you've decided he should give you. But of course, it's God's fault because he made you that way - even though he didn't make others that way.

Yes. I do believe that God purposely draws people with many different images and ideas of him to come to him. And he does this even though you think he should do it differently.

[EgoDeath]

In your little world, you seem very rational.  To those who know God, you're not.  Instead of looking for evidence God wants to give you, you're demanding he give you evidence that you've decided he should give you.  But of course, it's God's fault because he made you that way - even though he didn't make others that way.

Yes.  I do believe that God purposely draws people with many different images and ideas of him to come to him.  And he does this even though you think he should do it differently.

Give my last post a quick read-through when you have a chance. Thanks.

[Deesse23]

He thinks he is gonna waste his time by trying to find out if his most fundamental beliefs are true, and thus is gonna waste his entire life then by believing BS. Him wasting his (life)time is only his matter, not ours. The sad part of such an existence, the part that affects others* is the amount of CO2 generated to further global warming. 

*next to him acting according to his false beliefs and discriminating against others, etc.

You taught me some new things about myself.  I discriminate against others and I cause global warming.  I never knew that.

Read what i wrote, not what you think i wrote.

By believing false things you are wasting your entire life, best case. That case is if you dont harm any others. If you harm others by believing false things, its worse. Thats the point where one should be concerned. But you arent. You dont care if your beliefs are true. You then dont care to hurt others by acting according to your untrue beliefs.

You simply dont care. You have said it yourself. Just read what you wrote.

The part about global warning should have pointed out how useless your existence is, being based on wrong beliefs, beliefs you dont care about if they are true. So useless that the only thing you are doing is to contribute to CO2 everytime you exhale. Can one be more useless?
One step further would be actively hurting others by discrminating (the most usual vice of the religious, chritians particularly) But i failed, you didnt get it. Because you dont care. You dont care about your beliefs, you dont care if they affect others. You simply dont care.